MakeUseOf Directory » animation

Explania: Hundreds Of Animations That Explain & Educate

TehseenBaweja — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:01:11 +0000

If a picture is better than a thousand words, imagine what a lot of pictures combined together can achieve. That is exactly what Explania aims to do with hundreds of high-quality animations that will help to instruct and educate people. These animations are either created by Explania or co-creators and cover a wide variety of fields including technology, health, sports, software and more.

You can browse these animations through channels, search for them or even browse the most popular or recent ones. Similar to YouTube, you can also post comments to an animation, and the best feature of all, embed them on your website free of cost. Since Explania animations are of real high-quality, there are usually much better than an equivalent YouTube video.

Features:

Watch and share educational animations.
Read and post comments.
Embed animations on your website.
Upload your own animation.
No registration required.

Visit Explania @ http://www.explania.com

Nyanit: Let Nyan Cats Invade A Webpage [Fun]

abhijeet — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:23:29 +0000

If you are a heavy user of YouTube and follow the videos that go super-viral now and then then you probably know about the Nyan cat video that went viral in April of this year. It had these GIF animated cats and the song was Japanese and went like “Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya..” The term Nyan cats became popular after that, and this site called Nyanit lets you have Nyan cats hovering over and ultimately covering a webpage, just like it was in the video. All you need to do is enter the webpage url in the box they provide on their homepage.

You could also directly type nyanit.com/webpageurl, for example nyanit.com/makeuseof.com, and then see the Nyan cats flying from one end to the other of the webpage and slowly growing bigger in size. It’s a fun tool to play with if you like Nyan cats.

Features

Have Nyan cats spread and invade a webpage
Just type nyanit.com/webpageurl to get the effect

Check out Nyanit@nyanit.com (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

DisaPainted: Create Basic Paint Animations Through HTML5

Umar — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:01:54 +0000

A fun way to explore your creativity is by creating simple fun animations on your computer. Mostly this means creating GIF animations but most GIF creators place size and frame number limitations. Here to offer an HTML5-based alternative is a web service called DisaPainted.

DisaPainted is a free to use web service that lets you create HTML5 animations and share them online. When you first sign up for an account on the site you draw your own avatar. This step also helps you familiarize yourself with the site’s basic drawing tools. These tools include a brush, a line, curvy lines, rectangle and circle shapes, polygons, paint, spray, and erasing. A large collection of colors is offered for you to choose from. You can draw each frame of your animation and keep on drawing till you feel that you are done. Your animation can then be published and you can share its link with others to view.

Remember that to use the site your browser should be Chrome, Firefox, or any other modern browser that supports HTML5.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you create HTML5 animations.
Offers basic but effective drawing tools.
Publishes animations online for you to share with others.

Check out DisaPainted @ http://disapainted.com (By Umar from AllThatIsApple)

Pops: Get Email & SMS Alerts As Videos & Animations [Android 2.0+]

abhijeet — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:01:13 +0000

If you are an Android phone user and like to receive instant notifications for things like new emails, messages, Facebook and Twitter messages etc, but are bored with the default way of alert delivery with an icon and ringtone, then you should check out this new Android app called Pops. It wants to make receiving notifications fun by delivering them with cool animations and videos. They have a decent gallery of videos and animations, and you can choose and personalize your alerts accordingly.

The app has definitely struck a chord with Android users going by the number of downloads it sees every week. It is completely free to use and also lets you pause pops whenever it might an inconvenience (like in a business meeting).

Features

Make boring notifications fun with animations and videos.
Ever growing gallery of animations and videos.
Works for Email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter and more.

Check out Pops @ www.getpo.ps (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

DrawBang: Draw 16 x 16 Animated Pictures Online

TehseenBaweja — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:01:02 +0000

DrawBang takes you back in time a little bit by letting you draw 16 x 16 images with only 16 colors. You have the option to fill the background with one of the 16 colors or draw by simply dragging your mouse. Each image consists of two frames where you can make separate drawings and then combine them to create an animated image.

Your drawing can be saved by logging in with your Facebook account. You can also undo or redo any step and delete a drawing if its not to your liking. The app has a dead simple functionality and provides a really hassle-free way to draw simple images.

Features:

Create 16 x 16 images online.
A simple drawing with only 16 colors.
Redo, undo a step or delete an image completely.
Save an image by logging in to your Facebook account.
Similar tools: ASCIIFlow, Drawisland, CreateAgif, GIFmake, SketchPad and SimpleDiagrams.

Visit DrawBang @ www.drawbang.com

Animaps: Create Animated Maps Online & Share

TehseenBaweja — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:01:23 +0000

Maps can get pretty boring if they include a lot of information. Animaps aims to make maps more fun by letting you animate any Google map. You can create any journey by choosing the starting and ending point and animate it by providing your own time frame. Multiple objects like comments, images as well as videos can be added to your maps and they would appear on the exact time you have specified.

You can import text and routes as a TCX or a GPX file or even import Facebook photos, status updates, tweets, Picasa photos and Flickr photos. Once done, your animated map can be saved, shared through a unique URL and even embedded any where on the web. You can also browse through some great animated maps created by other users.

Features:

Create animated maps from Google maps.
Insert text, images and videos to appear on an exact time.
Save your map, share via link or embed on your website.

Visit Animaps @ www.animaps.com [Via FreeTech4Teachers]

Drawisland: A web app for creating drawings & GIF animations

MOin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:01:26 +0000

The Internet has many drawing applications to offer. But most of them are too basic to offer anything useful or too complicated to be taken advantage of by the average computer user. An exception to this is DrawIsland ““ a web app to create drawings and GIF animations.

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DrawIsland is a wonderful web application that lets you create a variety of drawings. The tools let you draw with different colors, lines, pencil, as well as hollow and filled rectangles and circles. You can erase portions of the drawing and undo / redo your actions. You can choose custom dimensions for the canvas or one from the available presets: 200×200, 400×400, 800×400, and 1024×768. The resulting drawings can be downloaded in the PNG image format.

Through an “Animate” button at the bottom, you can draw different frames and create a GIF animation from them. The delay time between each frame can also be controlled. The maximum number of frames allowed is 10 with the maximum size for each frame being 400×400 pixels.

Features:

A user friendly web application.
Does not require any registrations.
Lets you create online drawings.
Drawings can be downloaded in the PNG format.
A variety of colors and drawing tools are offered.
Lets you create GIF animations with each animation having a maximum of 10 frames.
Similar tools: CreateAgif, GIFmake, SketchPad and SimpleDiagrams.

Check out DrawIsland @ www.drawisland.com (by MOin from ThumbPress)

PlayGIF: Control How Animated GIF Images Play

abhijeet — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:01:17 +0000

You know about GIF images, right? They’re the animated images that play like a video. However, the problem with such images is that you cannot control them the way you can control a video playback. That’s because it’s an image, and not a video. PlayGIF is a neat tool that can help you get around this by offering controls like pause, reverse, speed up and slow down, for GIF images. You just need to upload the GIF image and you should be all set.

As you see in the second screenshot above, there’s a pause button, slower and faster options, and forward, reverse (fwd-rev) controls to play the image like a video. Certainly a unique way to play GIFs as the tagline of the website says.

Features

Customize how animated gif play
Get video-like controls for animated GIFs.
No sign up needed, just upload the GIF image.
Pause, reverse, speed up and slow down.
Clutter free interface.
Similar sites: SplitGif, GIFWorks and GifSoup.

Check out PlayGIF @ www.playgif.com (By Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

Ajax Animator: Browser based, simple animation tool (Chrome)

Israel Nicolas — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 01:01:36 +0000

The Google Chrome Web Store may just be days old, but there are some gems that you can find already. Just check out Ajax Animator, a cool HTML5 web app that allows you to create and edit animations on-the-fly. This simple animation tool is also a great beginner’s app for young animators.

You can get the app from the Chrome Web Store. Once installed, start by drawing on the canvas and adding layers. You can add elements for every frame in each layer where you can also shift the layer up or down, toggle to view, or delete. You can also watch a preview to see how your animation unfolds, then save your animation or work on it offline.

Other options include changing the Canvas size and the theme, all done in HTML5 goodness. Since it lives on the web, the app is cross-platform and cross-format.

Ajax Animator is a good app that shows the potential of the Chrome Web Store and the future of web apps.

Watch demo video below:

Features:

HTML5-powered & browser based animation tool.
Create animations.
Add layers.
Change canvas size.
Similar Tools: 3 Free & Easy Stick Figure Animation Programs, GIFup and GoAnimate.

Check out Ajax Animator @ www.chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ginffkjapdobanedcblllenliboglpkp

3Frames: Instant GIF Maker

TehseenBaweja — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:14:52 +0000

Many web apps let you create animated GIFs and many let you capture images from your webcam. 3Frames is an instant gif maker that combines both of them to let you create animated GIFs from your webcam. As the name suggests, you can use your webcam to capture 3 different frames or images. Once you are happy with your frames, just click preview and 3Frames will create your animated GIF.

You can adjust the speed of your animation and download it without registering for an account. Browse through the gallery displaying similar animations created by other users or add a comment to the chat stream. It is a fun little app that can be used to get a hip animated avatar or simply add effect to your photo.

Features:

Create animated GIFs from your webcam.
Includes upto 3 frames each.
Adjust the speed of your animaton.
Browse through gallery or add comments.
No registration required.
Similar tools: GifSoup, Gickr, MakeAGIF, GIFmake and more.

Visit 3Frames @ www.3fram.es